


Smells Like Evil Spirit

by eightllamas



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-10 08:09:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3283172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eightllamas/pseuds/eightllamas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is a ghost in Laura and Carmilla’s room and it makes things really complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smells Like Evil Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this thing on tumblr a while ago, since I finally made an account I figured it's time to post it here too.

Laura has read enough about supernatural creatures to know what she is currently experiencing is probably a ghost’s doing. Her eyes followed the floating cup all the way to the door where it fell and broke into many little pieces. Frowning, she tried to ignore the feeling of a pair of cold hands touching her back. She turned on the lamp and as the room brightened, the hands backed off. It was the third time this week and honestly, Laura has had enough of this. It was bad enough that she had to live with a vampire. An actual, real, bloodsucking vampire. She sighed, shaking her head. Was she being racist? Even if Laura never thought of this that way before, bloodsucker did sound at least partially politically incorrect. Would Daughter-of-the-night-european be more appropriate? She didn’t even have a chance to think more about this because the light bulb exploded with a loud light bulb exploding sound. Laura jumped up in surprise, she wasn’t usually frightened by loud noises but she was being harassed by some highly annoying poltergeist, so it was sort of justified.

“Hello?” She slowly stood up. “Could you by any chance just go away?”

There was no response, just some low howling. It was quiet, but the fact that it occurred at all was really disturbing.

“I have a test tomorrow.” She added, hoping that the ghost or whatever, will take pity on a poor college student and leave her alone today. Or at least change the light bulb it broke, those don’t grow on trees. “Please leave?”

The howling suddenly stopped but the room was still dark and her light bulb was gone forever. How rude. A dead person coming into her room, destroying things, they don’t know what it’s like to have a low income, they just sit around and harass the first person they see.

She sat in the dark for a few more minutes before the door opened. Laura, to her own great displeasure, realized that she was actually kinda glad to see Carmilla for once. The vampire turned on her night light, something Laura did not think of doing before.

“What?” Carmilla grumbled and Laura quickly averted her gaze. She was staring. How embarrassing.

“Nothing. We have a ghost here.”

Carmilla raised her eyebrows. “A ghost?”

“He’s been bothering me for a while.” When she noticed Carmilla’s expression change from totally indifferent to intrigued, she added. “But I think he’s mostly harmless.”

“I’ve never noticed anything.”

“He doesn’t come when you’re here. I don’t really blame him, though.”

“What was that supposed to mean?”

“Well,” Laura shrugged. “You don’t really make the environment friendly.”

“I made you coffee last week.” Carmilla sat on Laura’s bed, arms crossed. Laura just offended a vampire and a month ago she would have been terrified of what might happen. Now she just observed Carmilla’s face twist into the funniest expressions.

“That was an attempt to give me diabetes.”

“You don’t believe I could have done it out of the goodness of my heart?”

“Nope.” Laura sat down next to Carmilla, trying not to show her discomfort with what she was about to ask. “Well, this has become really inconvenient. Do you know how to get rid of him?”

“How do you know it’s a he?”

Laura sighed. “Obviously, he’s a he. So inconsiderate, won’t let me study, breaks my belongings.” Suddenly Laura’s eyes widened. “That’s also an accurate description of you. Are you sure you don’t have a ghost twin somewhere?”

“This is offensive. Do you think all supernatural creatures are related?”

“Only the annoying ones.”

“Do you want me to be a part of your little ghost busters team or not?”

“I want you, I don’t need you.” Laura frowned. “That came out wrong.”

“That’s really hurtful, buttercup.” Carmilla looked like a cat that just ate the canary. Laura did not like it at all, especially because in this case she would be playing the role of the canary.

“I don’t like butter and the ghost broke my cup. Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want to eat me.”

Laura really wished she could wipe that smug smile off of Carmilla’s face.

“I thought we already had that conversation.”

“Yes, and there will be no eating. I will get rid of this ghost without you.” Laura huffed, pushing Carmilla off her bed. “Maybe I’ll even ask Danny to help me.”

She was already under the covers when she heard Carmilla’s quiet muttering.

“Sure, because your girlfriend obviously knows so much about ghosts. It’s clearly the only logical option.”

“Good night, Carmilla.” She said loudly, which caused the muttering to stop.

After a moment she heard a quiet, hesitant. “Good night, Laura.”

Then something that sounded strangely like “fucking Danny”.

She closed her eyes, hugging the pillow she stole from Carmilla’s bed a few weeks ago as revenge for Carmilla stealing hers.

They never bothered to get their own pillows back.

Laura woke up to Carmilla waving burning leaves in her face, which was nothing like she imagined Carmilla waking her up, if something like that was ever going to happen. Which it wasn’t. Because why would it? That’s ridiculous.

“Excuse me.”

Carmilla moved the burning leaves a little and her face wasn’t hidden behind the smoke anymore. “Good morning, beautiful.”

Laura’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you trying to murder me?”

“Why would I?” Carmilla’s tone was strangely nice and she did not seem sarcastic. Maybe the ghost actually possessed her? Can vampires even get possessed? She’ll have to ask her about this later. “I’m helping you.”

“I vaguely remember saying I didn’t want you to. Also,” Laura pointed at the leaves. “You call trying to suffocate me, helping?”

“It’s white sage. It wards off evil spirits.”

“I don’t need your help.” Laura got up and trying not to step on the sage leaves which for some reason were everywhere, she opened the window.

“You wanted it yesterday.”

“Today I don’t. Please stop burning those.”

Carmilla frowned. “Fine, I didn’t want you and your girlfriend to piss off this ghost even more. But sure, go ahead.” She picked up her spiritual paraphernalia from the floor. “Do this on your own, see if I care if you end up with your face stapled to the ceiling.”

Color slowly drained from Laura’s face.

“What?”

Carmilla just smirked.

“Spirits can be vicious when angered. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She left the room and Laura sat there wondering if she made the right choice, rejecting the vampire’s help. For like five minutes, obviously, since it was clearly the right choice. She didn’t need Carmilla for this. What was she thinking, asking her in the first place?

This was stupid, she could handle it alone. One little ghost, that’s nothing. He wouldn’t really… staple her face to anything, would he?

Just to be careful, she hid her stapler under Carmilla’s bed.

Later that day, after doing her research she felt pretty educated on the topic of ghosts. She returned to the room equipped with various supernatural repellents, briefly wondering if they might work on Carmilla too. Nothing actually harmful, but enough to make her feel discomfort for a while. That would be nice.

She felt bad for even thinking it, but throwing a bag of salt at Carmilla’s head seemed very tempting.

Even though Laura knew Carmilla was harmless, she still felt like she had something to defend herself from. Not as horrifying as a bloody death, she wasn’t afraid of Carmilla’s fangs anymore. It was the seduction eyes that made her not fully comfortable at all times.

She had to admit, Carmilla was a… handsome individual. A fine specimen of vampire, if you will. But Laura was not interested in vampires, and the fact whether they were fine or not was irrelevant. It would be a lie to say she never thought about it. She did think, there was even that one dream. But it would never happen in actual life and she wouldn’t even want it to.

Hypothetically, if she were to be interested in a certain vampire, her life would become so much harder. First, being in a relationship with your roommate – that’s a big no. What if you break up? What then, being forced to live in awkwardness for god knows how long? Second – vampire. Fangs. Biting. Hiding bite marks. That would be even worse than hickeys, and hickeys are the worst.

Laura blushed at the thought of Carmilla’s fangs sinking into her skin. That was a definitely a bad idea. Thank god she wasn’t even into this. At all.

She was about to get started on her ghost hunting preparations when she heard the same low howling again. Only this time instead of being of a consistent volume, it was getting louder. Laura got up from her bed and tried to locate the source of the noise, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere around her.

Then, the spirit decided to take it up a notch. Because why not, right? Laura was not pleased.

A letter appeared on the wall in front of her, as if written by an invisible hand. The ghost hand. A next letter appeared near the first, then another one and then one more. Laura squinted at the spirit’s terrible handwriting.

L E A F

Laura frowned.

“Leaf?”

The howling intensified and the letters vanished. Some new ones appeared in their place.

“GOAWAY.” Laura read. “Oh.”

The ghost wanted her gone. Well, he was in for a disappointment. It was Laura’s room, and if anyone was going to be leaving, it would be him.

“Hey!” She opened a bag of salt, throwing some at the wall. “You’re the intruder! Also you’re really bad at spelling.”

The unwanted guest clearly did not take criticism well. The lights flickered and after a few seconds various items started flying towards her head. This was not a great situation, she had to admit. She ducked a heavy looking book and tried again. “Spirit, be gone!”

She threw some salt in the air but it seemed only to anger the ghost even more. Suddenly there was a lamp flying straight at her head and she was already closing her eyes and bracing herself for the impact, when she was violently thrown to the floor and squished between the carpet and someone’s body.

Objects did not stop flying everywhere around her, but she was being shielded now, so she dared to open one of her eyes. As soon as she did it, she regretted her choice.

“Hi, cupcake.”

Laura groaned and pushed Carmilla off.

“Nice to see you, too.” The vampire didn’t seem fazed by Laura’s attitude. She had this stupid self-satisfied smile on her face again, but there was something odd about it. If Laura didn’t know better, she would say Carmilla looked almost… worried.

No, that was definitely not it. She was probably concerned about her precious books getting thrown around the room.

She got up from the floor and grabbed her bag.

“I’m going to sleep at Danny’s tonight.” She didn’t even bother to look at Carmilla before she left. “Have fun with that.”

She did feel a little guilty about leaving Carmilla there with the mess and the possibly very malicious spirit, but then again, Carmilla was a vampire. She could deal with that, right? Besides, that ghost would take one look at her and run away. She’s not very nice to be around, at least most of the time. She does have her nice moments, sometimes Laura feels like she was forgetting that she used to treat her roommate as the fanged danger. She can act like a normal human (a very annoying, bratty human). Then she grabs a cup of fresh blood to snack on while she reads and it’s back to my roommate is a vampire all over again.

Laura’s not even scared, it’s just weird. It’s like living with a domesticated bear. You know it probably won’t hurt you, but who the hell keeps a wild animal as a pet?

Not that she would ever refer to Carmilla as a pet.

She tried to make the images of Carmilla wearing a collar and leash go away as she knocked on Danny’s door.

“Laura?” Danny seemed surprised but glad to see her. In her flannel shirt and sweatpants she looked completely non-threatening, just like a potential love interest should. Laura still could not understand why they never worked out. Danny would be a perfect girlfriend. She was smart, sweet and considerate. Loving and protective, but not to the point of being weirdly obsessive and creepy. Practical too, she was so tall. She could reach things on the highest shelves in the supermarket.

And despite all those things, back when they decided to give it a shot, it just didn’t feel right. It was good. It was nice. Just not the right kind of nice. Laura did not know what the right kind of nice was yet, but she was sure she would know if she found it.

“Laura!” Danny repeated, since Laura was too engrossed in her thoughts to react the first time.

“This is fine, I’m here. I was just thinking. About things. Can I sleep here tonight?” Laura blurted out. This is so not how this was supposed to go. They’ve decided to stay friends, but things were still a little awkward sometimes and maybe a sleepover wasn’t the greatest idea, but what else was she supposed to do? Stay in the room for this Halloween pride parade? No way.

So she barged into Danny’s room and put her bag on the bed. The taller gay just stood for a moment, dumbfounded, then closed the door.

“Okay, sure. We’re friends. That’s what friends do, right?”

“Exactly.” Laura nodded vigorously. “Do you want to play Monopoly?”

“Uh,” Danny hesitated for a second. “I don’t think I have any board games here.”

“That’s fine, we can do other things. Like,” Laura stopped to think about potential sleepover activities. “Talk.”

“Talking is good,” Danny agreed, though the expression on her face was clearly telling a different story.

“So, how you’ve been?”

“Good. You?”

“Good, also. Things are going great.” Laura attempted to sound convincing, but in her current situation it was not easy. Sighing, she sat on the bed. “I left Carmilla in our room with a ghost that writes on walls and throws things at people.”

Danny’s reaction was honestly very easy to predict.

“You did what?”

“There’s this ghost in our room. Most of the time he just made noises and was being really irritating so I didn’t think much about it, I mean that’s like having a second Carmilla. But now he’s getting aggressive and Carmilla kinda protected me from getting hit by a lamp and then I ran away and came here. That’s a short summary of things that happened and also part of the reason why I’m here.”

Danny looked at her questioningly.

“I also wanted to see you. I know that our thing ended up not becoming a thing but I still really like you and you’re a great friend-”

“Don’t do that.” Danny smiled sadly.

“Danny-”

“It’s okay, Laura. I’m glad to have you as a friend, too. Let’s leave it at that.” She frowned. “Now how about we get back to the ghost thing?”

“Right. The ghost thing. I feel bad about this. Carmilla’s a vampire so obviously she could defend herself if there was a need for it, but just leaving her there was not a nice thing to do.”

“Do you want to go back?”

Laura was silent for a moment before reluctantly answering. “Yeah. I do want to go back.”

“Let’s go then.”

Laura raised her eyebrows.

“What? I’m not letting you go there alone. We don’t know if it’s safe.” Danny grabbed a baseball bat.

“How do you want to fight a ghost with that?” Even though she was sure Danny meant well, that was not appropriate protection from the supernatural.

“I’ll try very hard.”

They rushed back to Laura and Carmilla’s room, only to find the vampire lying on the floor, writhing and clutching her throat. Laura felt her heart almost stop. Without thinking she jumped on Carmilla, waving her hands in front of her face, not knowing what to do to help her. “Leave her alone! Danny, pass me the salt!”

When Danny obliged, she threw some on Carmilla’s face. “Get off!”

It was all her fault. Carmilla was being attacked by the ghost she angered, and now she was going to get hurt. Laura even put the stapler under her bed. What if Carmilla’s face gets stapled to the ceiling? Carmilla will never forgive her and she will have to live with the guilt for the rest of her life. This wasn’t right. “Be gone!”

Her attempts were futile. The vampire still looked like she was being choked by some invisible hand. “Do something! Danny, help!”

Danny swung her bat around, careful not to hit Laura, a little less careful not to hit Carmilla. It didn’t seem to be working either. Until Carmilla’s body went still. She stayed on the floor, unmoving.

“Carmilla?!” Laura grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Carmilla, you useless vampire, wake up!”

There was no response. “You need to wake up! Please.”

This was like some horrible nightmare. Carmilla was not showing any signs of being alive, or at least as alive as an undead creature can be. Laura felt like her heart was going to jump out of her chest and dance the macarena.

“Carmilla, please. I need you to wake up.”

Suddenly, the corner of Carmilla’s mouth twitched. Laura frowned. The vampire was… smiling?

“I knew you cared, cupcake.”

Her eyes opened and her body started shaking, this time with laughter. “You should have seen the look on your face!”

Laura’s eyes widened when she realized what actually happened. It made her blood boil. “You… you stupid, dumb, idiotic jerk!” She hit Carmilla’s arm. “Do you think this is funny? Do you? It’s not funny, I thought you were seriously hurt!”

“Oh, I was. By how horribly you treated me. Even George agreed that was mean.”

“Who the heck is George?”

“George is the name of the ghost.” Carmilla explained, as if it was completely normal to make friends with the spirit haunting your room. “We’ve bonded. He’s gone now, by the way.”

“You’ve- you’ve bonded?!” At this point Laura was furious. “What is wrong with you?”

Observing the scene playing out in front of her, Danny awkwardly coughed. “I think I’m going to just go now, since, you know. There’s no danger anymore.”

“There was never any danger! It was just this idiot playing a prank on us!”

“Nevertheless, I’ll leave you two to… work out your issues.”

Carmilla grinned at her from the floor. “Everything is fine- ow!”

Laura hit her arm again. Then again. “It’s not fine! I thought you were dead, or well, deader! Than you are right now. And you are very dead, because I will kill you, how dare you scare me like this! I was so worried!”

“You were worried?”

“Of course I was.” Laura sighed. “You are so stupid, I swear to god!”

Neither of them noticed Danny quietly slipping out of the room.

“I can’t even begin to express how angry I am right now. What were you thinking?”

“It was just a joke, I heard you two coming and I wanted to get back at you for running away like that before.”

“And you did, you got back at me. Does it make you feel better?”

Carmilla’s face fell a little. “Honestly, not so much right now.”

“Don’t do that again.”

Carmilla appeared to be rethinking her choices. Maybe she would realize that this is not a thing that’s okay for a person to do. The few seconds when Laura thought that her roommate might not wake up, ever, were terrifying. She was just now realizing how important this idiot was to her.

“Let’s just… go to sleep and talk about this tomorrow.”

And just like that Carmilla’s smirk was back. “I would love to, creampuff, but you see, I can’t actually get up before you get off me.”

Well, whoops.

She was still on top of Carmilla. She got so angry she forgot to stop pinning the vampire to the floor. Her face turned red and she quickly jumped off her.

“Okay, I’m off. Now, sleep.” She didn’t give Carmilla the chance to say anything else. “Good night!”

She just ran away to the bathroom. Something was happening and she did not like it one bit. She definitely needed to sleep on it, the only problem was, she couldn’t return to the room while Carmilla was there, completely awake and probably ready to make a weird comment that would make her uncomfortable.

Caring about people was hard, but caring about Carmilla was like a whole new extreme level of difficulty. She never signed up for this. It was never this hard with Danny.

Why was she even comparing those two? It’s an entirely different kind of caring.

Or is it? A small, annoying voice in her head was making her doubt everything she thought knew about her current situation.

She was sure only of one thing. This sucked.

Finally, she reluctantly returned to the room. Carmilla was already in her bed, snoring and hugging Laura’s yellow pillow. She glanced at Carmilla’s stupid, cute sleeping face. She was blissfully unaware of the strange things going on in Laura’s brain right now. Good. She could never know.

That is, if she didn’t know already. That would be… not great. She was already smug enough, if she knew Laura considered this, even for a second?

Laura didn’t even want to think what would be her response.

What happened next was definitely not a good sign. She turned to get in her own bed when something caught her attention. It was Carmilla’s pillow. Carmilla’s pillow, which made Laura’s stomach do a thing. The thing she hasn’t felt since she and Danny broke up. She froze.

This could not be happening.

Horrified, Laura quickly got under the covers, only one thought in her head.

_Oh crap._

She slept without a pillow that night.


End file.
